DIY Co2 or NutraFin Co2
 

Hey brozzz,

I have a 48x10x24 uniquarium arcylic tank. 260W PL lighting and no co2 injection.

I was debating on whether to buy the Nutrafin Co2 System or make DIY co2 system from a 2 liter bottle. But since I am new to the planting scene I am not sure what is better or more efficient. Any ideas would be appreciated!

The good thing about the Nutrafin DIY set is that it incoporates a flipper. Most would agree that a flipper would be the most effective way of dissolving CO2 for DIY CO2.

If you were to purchase a flipper by itself, the Dennerle ones would easier cost 3-4 times more than that of the Nutrafin. Economically speaking, i would opt for the Nutrafin for the DIY way.

Since I live in the US, Dennerle is a brand that is hard to find if not at all. And this flipper you speak of?

what's your unit of tank measurement? inches or cm? if it's in inches it'd come up to about 50us gallons. with such a big tank it's not advisable to diy your co2 as the output rate would be too little to have any significance for the plants, i'd recommend you to go for cylinder type of co2 out where you can control the amount of co2 and it's also more constant. if you really decide on diy co2 then perhaps you'll have to use more than one bottle of mixture/a big bottle of mixture.
this is the nutrafin thingy that we're talking about:
http://www.theaquariumshop.co.uk/ish...hopscr355.html
this is the flipper
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/pet-king/15561176989.html

if your tank's measured in cm then it's pretty alrrght to go ahead with diy... but still nutrafin or similar products would be a good choice because of the flipper/diffusor provided. just concoct your own mixture after you used up the ones that came with the set :) hmmmm but if it';s in cm then won't your lights be extremely overkill?

btw what sort of plants are you keeping in there? some plants are less co2 hungry.... but with the amount of lights you're shining on your plants(>5wpg) isn;t there a risk of algae attack with inconsistent(diy) co2?

Yes, its in inches. But I think the actual amount of water is about 60Gal. Because of the sump in the back. So I should go with 3 Nutrafins?

one nutrafin is pretty small.. i think for your case perhaps using a huge container might be easier(you do one huge mix instead of many small ones) and more economical... since you're going diy you'll have to come up with a better way of diffusion to fully utilize every precious co2 bubble.... perhaps try doing a diy reactor? this website's pretty good-->here

i'd suggest fixing up a few big bottles and connect them together and link up them to a reactor which has a better diffusion rate compared to the flipper as it sorts of forces your co2 to be dissolved :) seen the diagram of fixing up several bottles of co2 in series and one output location, think that's a better choice compared to nutafin since the bottles are quite small and thus you've to get many to produce more co2 for a longer time :) hope it helps :)

Would 2 (2 liter) bottles be good? And for the reactor, I was thinking of putting right where the intake of the powerhead is. So the powerhead would suck in the bubbles and the co2 would be dissolved. The powerhead is located in the sump btw.

should be good enough, try adding more yeast to get a better bubbling rate but then your mixture will thus deplete sooner...there're a lot of variations on the net regarding the concoctions... personally i'm using brewers' yeast,milk powder,bicarbonate of soda and tank water to mix up my sugar.
will your sump cause surface agitation? if so co2 will escape from the water(sorry mind;s tired couldn't explain better) :D

Yeah, theres alot of water movement in the sump, but I was thinking of putting the reactor where the intake is, so the bubbles would be sucked in and dispersed in the main tank. Maybe by then it would be dissolved? As far as sugar and yeast are needed, should I also add baking soda as well? My tap waters PH is about 7.2-7.5, but I wouldn't want to risk big drop in PH. Thanks for your help by the way, greatly appreciated! :)